"Yes a year and a half ago I joined this forum..yes I've seen this thread at least a zillion times...no, I don't know how to listen.

So from the VF Recipe Book thread and how you can make bread without a loaf pan got me thinking about this one. So I had everything else just needed yeast so at the store I bought some.

So I made it tonight...it's not as pretty as Dino's but OMW it's YUM! nom nom nom

Moral of the story if Dino tells you to do something DO IT! Don't pass go, don't collect $200 just DO IT!

So yes like Dino said even if you can't boil water you CAN make this and no matter what you do to try to screw up you can't! You'll still have YUMMY NOMMY BREAD!

Somehow I missed a sentence that I read before about WHEN it was OK to mix it, so although confused, I set it for the first rising (without mixing) and then I found the sentence I missed so I mixed it all and set it again for 45 minutes. I'm still not sure if it officially rose or not but I have bread!"

People seriously knead (haha) to know how easy it is to have a bread dough to work with that you don't have to knead. And, it's really good to have some yeast around at all times, so that you can crank out your own oven fresh bread on those days that you've finished out your bank account, and are still hungry. PBJs and cucumber sandwiches aren't fancy, but they'll keep you fed for a few cents, when you make your own bread at some. A bit of olive oil, some garlic, salt, pepper, and some tomato slices, and a bit of dried basil will let you feel like you're having bruschetta (when you toast the bread), and takes less than 5 minutes to throw together when the kids are screaming with annoyance at waiting on the pasta water to come to a boil. Get used to making your own bread. It's got so few ingredients, that I had it memorised. Puppy makes pizza dough from this recipe, and it comes out flawless every time. Give it a looksie. Others modified it to make cinnamon rolls. Others added fruit, or nuts, or vegetables. They also commented. They also took pictures (quite a few of mine are on there). Go. Make it already.

If you live in the New York City area, and like my book, or like my recipes, or even just like me (wink wink), could you please just take a moment to fill out a book request form for the NYC Public Library? Click this link to go to the NYPL website, and fill out the form.

http://www.nypl.org/books/suggest.cfm

The Title is "The Alternative Vegan," the Author is "Dino Sarma", the ISBN is ISBN-10: 0977080420 ISBN-13: 978-0977080427, the Edition is First, the place of Publication is New York. Publisher is Ingram, the list price is $17.95, and the format is Book. If you could also include some comments about how you heard about my work, it would really help, because the people reading it will see that it's not someone sending multiple copies of the form. Thanks.

Also, if you'd like to request The Alternative Vegan at your local library, I would appreciate that too. :D

WARNING: Do not fill out the forms I'm linking below. Only fill out /your own local/ library's form IF your library doesn't carry it in their catalog, and you want to check it out to read. Don't abuse the system for me; it's annoying to the librarians who work so hard, and it takes what precious little money they have to work with away from stuff that people are actually reading. I'm only linking these to show that "Suggest a Book" programmes are common, and your local librarian will be happy to show you how to do so.

Whoof. Finally got the dsl and wireless router set up and working after much drama. We're both on mac, so we had to manually configure the DSL, even though the CD /says/ that it'll work on a OSX computer. That was lame and annoying, but whatever, it was working. Then I find that one of the outlets is dead in the spot where I wanted to set everything up, and we didn't have an extension cord for the other live outlet to split the electric connection. So Puppy goes to Gristede's, snags a cord, comes back. Then the DSL futzed out on us completely, and we couldn't get the bloody modem to work correctly, because Puppy wasn't close enough to the Apple store when he bought it, so he had just dashed in to the closest store when he did get it. DRAMA. So then we reset the modem on the web interface, and it was fine. And the router is set up. And the phone.

19 February 2008

In my house, cocoanuts seem to have an iconic place in our domestic life. My mother, who is a strong woman, who can do pretty close to anything you set in front of her, will pass the cocoanuts to my father to break and shell. In fact, for the most part, if the family uses cocoanut, I've noticed (in the back of my brain; I'll explain why back of brain later) that those women give it to the man of the house, too. And of course, why would a single man ever need to break a cocoanut that he can't even finish? His mother might ask him to break hers if his father is out of town, or not available. But by and large, it's man's work.

I didn't notice how deeply it's in my brain that cocoanuts are men's work until I moved out on my own, and just naturally, just like breathing, passed my cocoanuts to Steve to break and shell (remove from the shell, of course). In fact, from the time we got married, I'd automatically hand them over, or call him to do it, without ever bothering to do it myself. My father, when he noticed this, made sure to pass on the knowledge of how to properly break a cocoanut to both Steve and me, but he really concentrated on training Steve in the art of fiddling out the white part. So much so that regardless of what tools we have, Steve's always managed to get me my fresh cocoanut for my soups, stews, and rice.

I saw a cocoanut from my recent shopping trip to Subzi Mandi, and wanted it right then and there. Steve had already cracked one open for me yesterday, and I had already used it in a sambhar. I already had a bowl full of that, and I wanted some fresh cocoanut.

So there I stood. Staring at my nemesis, as it mocked me. "Steve's not here. Hahahah!" I rolled my eyes, and picked up the hammer. This is in my blood, damnit. I am still my father's son, after all.

A few whacks later, and BOOM.

It came out of the shell all by itself.

In one piece.

Booyah.

I hope you understand what a feeling of elation coursed through me when it happened. As in, this is something that I will tell my mother about tonight, when I call her. I even took pictures with my crappy camera phone.

I am very pleased with myself.

A couple of people were curious about the views from Roosevelt Island to Manhattan. Here's a picture I took while walking to the subway station:

07 February 2008

Cliff asked me to make a blog for Sacred Chow, so I did. It's at sacredchow.blogspot.com and you're welcome to dash on over and take a look. As of right now, there's not very much posted there, but we're going to start to fill it up with the daily specials, and other neat shit like that. I'm hoping to get some of the other people here involved (who are interested, of course), so that we can all post our thoughts about new specials, or events that we're having and shit. However, I'm not sure where Cliff wants to take this, so we're going with wait and see for now. It should be pretty cool, and I'm hoping that my harassing him to do this for all this time has finally got him excited about it. :D It'll be a neat way to connect with our peoples.

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About Me

I'm currently a happy resident of the Journal Square area of Jersey City, NJ. I work as a bookkeeper in Manhattan and Queens (depending on which job needs me when). I still cook though. I don't write as much as I used to, because I haven't really felt that need to express myself through my writing.

Instead, I visit friends, or have them come over and visit me. We get together, cook, and talk about whatever is interesting at the moment.

The Alternative Vegan book

The Alternative Vegan is a book based solely on produce. You don't have to buy expensive, fancy, hard-to-find ingredients to be vegan; the most interesting and tasty vegan food is just produce! Learn how to remove the fear from the kitchen, and do things on your own terms, just the way you like it!